Chocolate
by ASoldiersLamb
Summary: Mihael Keehl's story. Near is impassive, and Mello is not. Why? Slight romance later. T For language and violence
1. Bloody Accident

I should start from youth. Well, childhood, really. I mean, I was young when I died anyway, right? Well, childhood was…weird. I don't think most kids grew up going through what I went trough. Being pumped through with shredder rounds doesn't even seem to compare according to Matt's description. I don't think Matt has ever suffered, and judging by the foolish way he handled things, I don't think he was prepared to take on the real world. He was just too young at heart. You know, I think the only way you can prepare for the real world truly, is to suffer from a young age, and learn to take it as you grow older. It makes you fearless. You know from the insufferable pain that you are not immortal and you can't start over and change what has happened. I learned that when I was five.

So yes, like most kids my age, I was the son of a single mother. Not a bastard, I knew exactly who the mother fucker was that sired and left me, but raised by only my mother. My mother wasn't a monster either. She was actually quite good to me. I went to a good school, and got fine grades. Well, no. they weren't all that fine. My grades suffered because I didn't care to try. At this time in my life, the only worry was the rather large boy on the playground that never gave me a chance to fight back. I could have fought back if I wanted too, I just didn't want to. I didn't care.

My mother was a wonderful person. She was kind, and always tried to get me to do my best. But, you know what they say… Bad things happen to good people. In this case, it happened to two good people. My mother and my self. Wait, I have to go back a moment.

When I was three, I joined a Karate class with my best friend Lucius. He was from Italy and had trouble with English sometimes. I don't know how, but he was a wiz at pronouncing my name. I know its spelled Mihael, but most people just call me Michael. It's easier. Well, they did then. When I met Lucius, I pronounced his name Loo-SI-us. I was wrong. Apparently in Italy it's pronounced LOO-chus. When I told him about the common mispronunciation of my name, he told me it was probably MEE-Hey-el. I liked that more than Michael, so it stuck.

Well, as I was saying before, my mother was driving me home from Karate on a Tuesday night Well, Lucius and I both. We were talking about the names and their origins. Apparently, I'm Jewish, though I don't look it. Up until the day I died, I never practiced Judaism. I was Catholic. I know this all must sound so fluffy, but it changes pretty quickly. Mum joined in on the conversation by telling me that my father was Jewish. I bet you can guess now why I never practiced the damned religion. This clearly made me mad, even then, that she brought him up at all. My mother turned back just in time to swerve being hit by a moron speeding in every zigzag pattern he could through the lanes. However, he'd apparently cut off another guy who came up and hit the driver's side of the car. It was the most horrific moment of my life up until then. I was only five, and in a car accident that could have taken my life.

Everything slowed down and I could feel every strand of hair on my head shift through the impact. The sheer force of it hit me like a wave, knocking the air out of my lungs and bowing my body away from it. If I remember right, I think I was screaming. Hell, what five-year-old wouldn't be screaming bloody murder as they experienced a car crash. Your mind just quits out on you. You can't think of anything by the basic instincts. Survive, and that's it. All you can think about is breathe in, breathe out, and don't get hit by anything. My head was slammed into the backseat window, and I could hear glass shattering. Oddly enough, I felt nothing. Not the pain, not the broken glass that was undoubtedly lodging itself into my soft skull, not even the fact that my mother was draped across the two front seats and covered in blood. The front end of the car that had hit us was driven through the seat my mother had been occupying during the impact. After a still moment, broken only by Lucius' sniffling, it dawned on me. My mother was dead. I think that's what changed me forever, really. My life after the wreck had a lot to do with who I became, but this was a huge hit.

I fought the belt that held me to the bloody backseat of the car. I don't think that Lucius was hurt, just scared shitless. I would have been, had my mind not been on my mother at the time. They always show in movies how people go through horrible trauma and still find the coordination to struggle to the one they cared abut that was dying. That is not at all true or possible. I wanted to fight my way to my mother, and I did, as hard as I could. The problem was, my mind was no longer working in logic. I had no idea how to break free of the friggin' seatbelt that held me, and a warm liquid was traveling down my spine. I should have known that was from the impact with the window, but at the time, I didn't register anything other than the desperate need of a toddler to get to his mother.

I kicked and screamed and fought, but to no avail. I was hopelessly trapped inside the car, bound to the back seat. I think I screamed 'mommy' until I slipped out of consciousness. Mind you that wasn't long. My knowledge of medical science now shows that I was running on pure adrenaline from the moment I hit the window. Loosing that much blood from you head should knock you out instantly.


	2. St Patrick's

After the wreck, I spent almost a year in recovery. The doctors spent the first few weeks of my recovery thinking that I would be victim to severe brain damage. I think I came back and hit them with quite a surprise. I didn't know I was smarter than I should have been, but eventually it came to my attention. Some of the nurses would play games with me when they had the time, and I'd almost always beat them. I thought I was just good at games. I had always been good at games. I played cards, marbles, Chinese checkers, English checkers, dominoes, and Chess. I think Chess was the only thing I ever lost at. I just didn't have the patience.

"Your patience may have been affected by the accident, Mihael. We can't say what all has been effected yet, but we know some things." The Nurse told me one night as I lay down after a particularly grueling match of Chess.

"What do you know?" I asked the woman.

"Well." She said, smiling, "We know that you are incredibly smart, and creative with your intelligence." Then her smile slipped away, "However, we think that the injury has also caused some personality defects." I was speechless. Trust me, that is rare, but I really was. Personality defects? Why? 'I shouldn't have to go through something like this' was all I was thinking as I fell asleep that night.

When Nurse Joanne woke me up that morning, an old man was standing with her. His smile was soft and kind yet, I didn't trust him. I felt as though his arrival was the mark of some great change in my life. Maybe he worked for the government and he was coming to take me to an orphanage where I would hardly be cared for. I grew up in high society because of my grandfather's businesses. I didn't think I was going to be allowed to live the way I'd become accustomed.

"Hello, Mihael. Shall we play a game?"

Oh, trust me, by that time I was exceedingly freaked. I didn't ever want to speak to this man, let alone play a game with him. So, unable to pass up a challenge, I tentatively agreed and got out of bed.

"I am Mr. Roger." The elderly man said, holding out his hand to me.

That, I must say, had to have been the most grueling round of Chess I had ever played before in my life. I never played Chess after that day, let me tell you. Mr. Roger was a phenomenal player with years of experience, and me, a simple novice and a child. O course, I was destroyed, but the game was long. I have never played a board game as long as that match. I'm sure that if I'd played with Near a time or two, I might have seen both ends of much longer games. However, we all know how things went with Near. I think I hated that shit the second Matt splattered blood over his white cotton pajamas, but that will be later, trust me.

Wammy's House. I had never heard of such a place. Mr. Roger had told me at the hospital that I qualified to be boarded there. The grimace on my face made him chuckle warmly.

Let me explain. Boarded, sounds like the word used to describe a prison. In any case, an orphanage was not much better. I would have never admitted it when I was alive, but now that I've really got nothing in particular to prove, I guess I'll say it. As far as orphanages go, Wammy's house was quite well accommodated. At the time, though, I was not up to the idea of living with a bunch of other kids for the rest of my life. So, I refused to go to an institute for the 'gifted'. Joanne explained that I would either be going there or to another orphanage somewhere. I don't remember why I chose the latter choice, perhaps I was just stubborn at the time or the massive heard wound I'd suffered had caused me to make bad decisions. I think I'll use the head wound excuse, it explains so many more bad choices I made.

I know you must be wondering what I did in a normal orphanage. Well, use your head. Clearly, I wreaked havoc upon my 'inmates' as you can call them. I did everything I could to screw with their heads. I didn't make a single friend at St. Patrick's School. I think this is where I became accustomed to the colour black. I was so good at fooling everyone that I think I just created an image of myself as a black ninja. Now, you have to remember that I was five or six at the time. Being a black ninja was the greatest thing in the world. Because of my history in martial arts, I felt that I could also pick fights. I won most of the time, but when the older kids started picking fights with me, I saw my share of black eyes and bloody noses. No, scratch that, broken noses. I had my nose broken twice in the five or six years I was a 'student' at St. Patrick's School.

Most of my time there, however, was spent in solitary. The Baker Act was greatly in effect there. If I did something really bad like almost injure a student, or picked a fight with a bigger kid, or just jumped up in our classes and screamed random shit at the teacher in a higher vocabulary level than I should have known, they'd confine me for seventy-two hours. I don't think they ever realized that leaving me with no one to distract me from my thoughts only gave me better ways to plan against them.

The funniest thing I think I ever did was scare the youngest girl in the abbey. Yes, I was raised by nuns for part of my life. In fact, I got the rosary I still wear now from her. I saw her coming down the hall one morning so I started violently twitching and screaming random religious statements backwards at passersby. You've never seen anything better than the looks on several nine or ten year olds faces when a kid they hate seems to be possessed right in front of you.

Well, she panicked. She pushed kids out of her way and came to me ordering the kids I'd already wailed on over the years to restrain me. I grabbed onto her robe and screamed "You compels Christ of power!" I flinched and screamed each time I uttered the name Christ. I could hardly stop myself from laughing when she attempted to exercise me right there in the hall and draped the rosary around my neck. I broke down screaming and threw her into a wall. Then I bolted as far as I could in the building until I came face to face with Mr. Roger. Well, no, I ran right into him and toppled to the ground.

He was glaring. He was glaring down at me! Then he grabbed onto my wrist and pulled me along.

"Whoa! What are you doing?"

"Mihael Keehl, you have no idea what kind of trouble you are getting yourself into here. You must come with me for you own good."

"Go with you where?" I asked in breathless bewilderment.

"Wammy's House. It's only right that you do." I pulled as hard a I could to get away from him.

"No! I'm not going to that freak school!" I shouted. He stopped and rounded on me holding my wrist even tighter.

"Face it, Mihael, you are a freak and this is the only place that will do you justice." Then he turned and continued dragging me against my will. I don't know how he was able to stop me from freeing myself, but I was dragged all the way out to a dark Bentley before he let me go.


	3. Competition

I had never seen anything like Wammy's house before. It looked like a stately mansion. We pulled into the rounded drive and a single boy was seated on the stone stair handles leading up to the front doors. He had red locks and what looked like big bulgy red orange eyes. Well, I dust wanted to tick Matt off. I couldn't really see his eyes because of the gamer goggles on his face. He had a handheld and was avidly playing it. He was in electric yellow pajamas. I soon found out that everyone in Wammy's house wore the pajama like clothes in one colour or another.

"Good morning, Matt." Mr. Roger said as we approached. Matt reluctantly drew his gaze from his game and lifted his goggles to peer at the both of us. His newly revealed bright green eyes caught mine and froze for a moment, then turned back to Mr. Roger.

"This him?" He grunted. Mr. Roger nodded.

"Will you be so kind as to show him around? You can stop his trickery a bit better than I can." Matt shrugged and beckoned me to follow him up the stairs and into the building. He lowered the goggles back over his eyes, and continued leading me through the house doors without so much as a glance up from his game.

He pointed to his left at a set of double doors that were shut.

"That's where the high priority kids are." He paused his game and opened the set of doors. At the top of his voice he yelled, "Morning, Sahara!" The girl in the center of the unfathomable large room that was perched precariously on one hand toppled to the ground at the sudden noise. She scrambled up quickly and flicked long strands of black hair out of dark amber eyes with golden fingers. She looked almost Egyptian to me. The glare just made my suspicion greater.

She ran full force at Matt, attempting to get him back for startling her. Unfortunately, I was not used to the ways of the students at Wammy's house, and I happened to be standing right next to the worst trouble maker in the whole school.

Matt grabbed onto my shoulders and dragged me in front of him. Sahara was to close to stop now and she plowed straight into me. We fell to the ground in a heap and I will still to this day swear that the tiny Egyptian girl was growling. Matt was laughing so hard, he could hardly get the introductions out.

"Sahara… this is… um…did Roger give you a name, dude?" I'm pretty sure that's what he said. By this time the uncontrollable anger that plagues me was so built up that I hardly noticed him speaking. I jumped straight at him, and without another sucker to drag in front of him, the gamer boy was helpless. I tackled him to the ground and drove my knee into his chest. Trust me, letting a volatile five year old learn to be a black belt was the worst decision my mother ever made. The wind was knocked out of Matt, but he soon recovered from that. I guess I should have realized that Matt was bigger than me. I was still pretty small for an eleven year old. He smothered my face with one hand and drove me backwards off of him and slammed my head into the ground. I knew he was bigger than me, but that doesn't mean I quit fighting. I bit down as hard as I could on the soft flesh between his thumb and index finger. He cried out and ripped his hand away, scrambling off me. He shook his hand vigorously to ease the pain and the blood I'd surface splattered all over the white pajamas of a little boy that had walked into the room. He didn't react at all to the scene or the gore on his clothes. Then again, neither did the white eyed girl with him. Well, that's because she was blind, but I didn't know that at the time.

The boy coiled a lock of white hair around his finger and slipped past us to sit awkwardly on the floor. He dumped a pile of puzzle pieces on the cherry wood floors and began putting the puzzle together. The odd thing was that the puzzle was all white. I think my catholic side was what drove me to hate him so. What did he think he was, the serine angel of God?

Matt scoffed at the two and drew back his fist to hit me, but he was hit square in the jaw by Sahara. Matt went limp and just backed away, sucking gingerly at the wound on his hand. Sahara laughed and sat down on the arm of the chair he was seated in and fooled with his red locks of hair with a bemused smile on her face. Yes, she did have a crush on Matt at the time, but that changed. Sahara was smart, remember that.

"Looks like you've finally met your match, eh Matt?" she said. That was the first time I saw him. L.

He entered the room with his hunched posture, shadowed eyes, and bare feet. I thought he was just a lost orphan who heard the noise. He looked around the room and his eyes froze on the boy with the puzzle. All I kept thinking was, 'He wasn't even involved in any of this. I'm the freaky new kid who just beat Matt, why wasn't I acknowledged? What made puzzle boy so great? He was only like four.' He approached the boy and picked at his sleeve curiously with two fingers.

"Near," he asked quietly, "Why is there blood on your shirt?" The child responded by pointing to the invalid Matt without looking up from his puzzle. That gesture alone made my blood boil. It was like I wasn't even there. Of course, this was before I found out that you had to be part of them, and I wasn't at the time.

Mr. Roger came around the corner into the room, a vein pulsing in his head. Later, I was told that Mr. Roger was patient. I think Matt and I were the only ones who were able to get that tick going in hid head.

"Matt, Mello, what have you two done?" He asked in a outrage. A little girl at his arm was undoubtedly the one who had seen the fight and run off to tattle. I used to love hitting that little prat in the face with foot balls. (If you don't live in Europe than a football is a Soccer ball.) The teen next to Near pressed his thumb to his lips and studied my thoroughly.

"If he has an alias, that must mean he has been tested, correct, Mr. Roger?"

"Yes." Mr. Roger responded, looking from the teen to the elderly man that had accompanied him.

"And his scores?"

"Farley well."

"Only Farley?"

"His mental faculties are young, but he shows signs of vast improvement." The teen smiled at me.

"Well, then, we should make sure he improves, shouldn't we, Mr. Roger?" Mr. Roger agreed and dabbed at his sweaty forehead with a monogrammed kerchief the man at his side had handed him. It had a gothic style W on it.

"Good. Near, it's time for your annual examination."

"Yes, L." Near rose to his feet to follow the teen out of the room, but turned back and looked at me for the first time. I swear the universe around him crackles and disintegrates when he looks at someone that way. He has no expression on his face, yet you can tell he's thinking of every little thing. He freaked me out. Well, this entire school freaked me out, but that's the point, right? He looked dead at me. "Welcome to the competition, Mello." He said in that monotone voice and grabbed L's outstretched hand.

The blind girl smiled lightly and Sahara rounded on her.

"What are you so happy about, Oasis?" Oasis didn't look any older than Near and had olive skin and dark curls. Her smile merely grew wider.

"Things are sure to get interesting, now. Welcome, Mello." Trust me, that voice scared the shit out of even me. Have you ever seen those movies with the scary oracle or prophet? She was like them, only worse, because she wasn't acting. I never believed in prophets but to this day, I still don't know how she got so spot on with her predictions.

"I looked at the occupants of the room. These people were my opponents now. I didn't know what the competition was for, but I swore I wasn't going to loose. So, I would have to become friends with them. Trust was the only way to find out how to bring them down, and trust me, they were all going down. Even that little kiss ass Near. I was going to have an upper hand to Near. It seemed that the only person in this competition that trusted him was Oasis. I needed everyone to trust me in order to take them down. This meant, however, that everyone needed to think I trusted them.

"So…," Sahara asked, "Why are you so late to the running?"

Perfect.

"Well," I responded "My mother and I were in a car accident when I was five…" I was going to win this.


End file.
